Bertie's Serpent is a creature featured in the Magic Kingdom's Haunted Mansion.
Description[]
Biography[]
This serpent was a creature which belonged to the big-game hunter Bertie Dread of the Dread Family during the late-19th/early-20th century. It is likely that it was taken by Bertie on one of his foreign travels. The level of familiarity and caring which Bertie held for the serpent is unknown.
When Bertie murdered family-patriarch Jacob Dread for wealth, he seemingly did so with a poison created from the serpent's own venom. A statue of the serpent would be included in Bertie's bust following his own death at the hands of Jacob's wife Florence. It is unknown when the serpent died or how.
History[]
In the testing stage for the Haunted Mansion's Dread Family installation, the serpent was designed to be a constrictor or viper and was shown choking Bertie. In this story, the snake would have attacked and killed Maude in the garden.
Species Identification[]
Snake[]
Testing art showing the snake design for the serpent.
At first glance, the serpent would appear to be a snake and it was featured as such in the original artwork for the Dread family. The final statue of the serpent however provides evidence to the contrary of this. The serpent is showed to have fins on it's head and tail, a trait which no known species snake has on Earth, not even sea-snakes. It does however have scales similar to those found on a snake.
Amphibian[]
Due to this it is very likely that Bertie's pet might be an amphibian rather than a reptile. The amphibians the creature most closely resembles are the Two-Toed Amphiuma ( Amphiuma means) and the Reticulated Siren (Siren Reticulata). Both of these are species of salamander and are often mistaken for snakes and eels due to their serpentine bodies with the Two-Toed Amphiuma having the alternate name of the Congo Snake.
This identification is still flawed however as these serpentine amphibians do not have scales (which the serpent is shown to have) and also do not have webbed fins on their tails. Furthermore, while the Reticulated Siren has head appendages resembling those of the serpent, they are external gills while the serpent's seem to be shown as fins specifically.
Fish[]
The scales and fins might be some indication that the serpent is intended to be a species of serpentine, amphibious fish similar to an eel. Both the European eel ( Anguilla anguilla) and the American eel (Anguilla rostrata) are known to be able to live on land for extended periods of time in moist conditions via skin-breathing. Species of swamp-eel (not true eels) have similarly been known to be able to do as such as-well. However, none of these animals have scales like those found on Bertie's serpent and none of the aforementioned animals are even remotely venomous.
Fictionality Extension[]
Regardless of the classification, it is almost definite that Bertie's serpent is a fictional animal as its traits do not cleanly match up with any species known to science. It could be a snake with unique fish/amphibian-like fins rather than flippers. It could be a salamander with scales and specialized fins and/or external-gills. It may even be a scaled eel with is venomous, similar to the unique moray eel. It could even be a sort of missing link between the three aforementioned possibilities.
Appearances[]
A statue depiction of the serpent appears wrapped around the neck of its owner, Bertie's bust in the queue of the Haunted Mansion.
Trivia[]
- The serpent's poison could be an allusion to the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare in-which the villain Claudius is compared to a serpent for poisoning his brother Old Hamlet for the throne of Denmark.
- Depending on the species of the serpent, the poison used to kill Jacob could be:
- A viper's venom which would have caused extreme burning pain to Jacob, followed by his blood coagulating and clotting within his veins and heart, preventing blood-flow. It would have taken a relatively longer amount of time to kill Jacob, during which time he would have suffered from swelling, flesh discolouration, bodily illness, and difficulty breathing.
- A tetrodotoxin which is a neurotoxin created from the skin of Salamanders. This would mean that Jacob would have died by losing control of his nervous system, being paralyzed and his brain losing the ability to make his lungs move causing him to die from a lack of air.
- The only known eel with venom or poison would be the Moray Eel which has poisonous (not venomous, poisonous) mucus in their mouths. The poison intensifies pain and destroys red-blood cells where applied, resulting in a high susceptibility to incidental wounds and illnesses which eventually wears off. Under normal circumstances, it would not be an effective poison for murder as it is not inherently fatal and relies on the victim to have a wound.
- Working within the fish/eel theory it is possible that the venom/poison was an ichthyotoxins which when exposed to Jacob would have caused body spasms, migraines, breathing trouble, and sickness. It would have required that Bertie harvest the toxin from the blood and/or flesh of the serpent which would both explain the serpent's death and fit Bertie's M.O. as a big game hunter. However, once again this toxin is only mildly poisonous to humans and wouldn't be efficient for murder.